The Agony Of Filling Out A Hall Of Fame Ballot

Does Jeff Bagwell belong in the Hall of Fame? (Courant file photo )

December 14, 2011|Jeff Jacobs

While leaving an empty box next to Jeff Bagwell's name …

Lots of folks have a bucket list, or at least that's the term they assign to it after the 2007 movie with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. And while it is probably best to keep most of the Before-I-Croak inventory private, I will share one checked off mine:

Cast a vote for the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The first hint reality wouldn't be nearly as romantic as the dream arrived in the form of Michael Felger, Boston television and radio provocateur, in the Patriots locker room in 2008. He pointed out I was the only new voter from the Boston chapter of the BBWAA that year and the Jim Rice ballot could come down to one vote either way. He offered two words of advice, "Be ready."

The two words scared me so much sabermetric decimal points started running down my leg. Didn't want to be wrong. Didn't want to be labeled a homer. Certainly didn't want to be the over-interviewed schlep known for holding Rice's fate in his hands.

I studied every statistical argument for a month, survived a near cerebral hemorrhage when it was forwarded to me that Roy White was better than Rice, voted for Rice and added one line to my bucket list: Live long enough to see Rice elected by more than one vote.

Rice got in by seven, with 412 votes among 539 ballots. Phew, dodged one bullet … only to be dragged into bottomless mire of performance-enhancing drugs. And, man, I have come to hate it.

Few things open you up more quickly to Internet ridicule than releasing your Hall of Fame ballot. You've got your, "Hey, moron, it's not the Hall of Very Good. If you need to ask if a guy is a Hall of Famer, he's not." You've got your, "The guy hasn't had one at-bat in five years, you're a hypocrite for changing your mind." Guilty on that count, I'm voting for Barry Larkin this year after not voting for him the previous two. There's the, "You're an imbecile for voting for a compiler [Bert Blyleven]." There's the, "You're an imbecile for voting for a guy who only came up big in big games [Jack Morris]." Guilty on both counts.

All around you've got numbers nerds who pick their guy, find every conceivable statistic to back their point while ignoring every statistic to the contrary. And if your conclusion is different than theirs, you're not only identified as an imbecile, you're some kind of sicko. Small wonder many voters keep their ballots private.

Yet it wasn't until Joe Posnanski of Sports Illustrated wrote something last December that I began to wonder if voting for the Hall of Fame is worth the hassle. There are places on the Internet where you are called a man playing God if you don't vote immediately for Jeff Bagwell. You are called Joe McCarthy. Posnanski didn't use either term, but he came close.

Bagwell never tested positive for steroids. He was not named in the Mitchell Report. Yet because Bagwell has become, in some voters' minds, a player who used PEDs, Posnanski wrote, "I can't even begin to describe my disgust … it makes me absolutely sick to my stomach.

"I hate the character clause in the Hall of Fame voting. I think it encourages people to believe their own nonsense, to stand up on high and be judge and jury …I'd rather a hundred steroid users were mistakenly voted into the Hall of Fame over keeping one non-user out."

He wrote, "I would say to those people who would not vote for Jeff Bagwell because they simply believe he used steroids, based on how he looked or some whispers they heard, I have a better idea: Let's just burn him at the stake. If he survives, you will know you were right."

Joe Posnanski is the best sports writer in 2011 America, but it doesn't mean he's 100 percent correct on this issue.

Based on numbers alone, Bagwell deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. That part is easy. He hit .297 with 449 homers, eight 100-RBI seasons and had a .948 OPS as well as a Gold Glove and an MVP Award.

Yet because of the sins of his baseball generation, fair or not, Bagwell finds himself in an uncomfortable position. Bagwell grew up in Killingworth, went to the University of Hartford, so sure, I'm rooting for his eventual induction. Yet we also have heard tens of players like Bagwell deny steroid use over the years only for it to turn out otherwise. We have seen tens of players like Bagwell blow up from a skinny 20 to a cartoon 35. We have seen tens of players like Bagwell break down physically in their late 30s. I will never vote for Rafael Palmeiro or Mark McGwire, not in 15 lifetimes, but I also don't want to be part of any witch hunt. I only want to play the percentages. I want Bagwell's insistence he was clean to be true. I don't want his induction to backfire in an ugly way. My view certainly is not foolproof, but it's one I'm comfortable with given the uncomfortable parameters. Forget 100 juicers. I don't knowingly want to vote for one.